Ch. XIX.] DILUVIAL THEORIES. 271 



be fissured or depressed to a certain depth. The great cavity 

 of western Asia is 18,000 square leagues in area, and is occu- 

 pied by a considerable population. The lowest parts, sur- 

 rounding the Caspian Sea, are 300 feet below the level of the 

 Euxine, here, therefore, the diluvial waters might overflow 

 the summits of hills rising 300 feet above the level of the plain ; 

 and if depressions still more profound existed at any former 

 time in Asia, the tops of still loftier mountains may have been 

 covered by a flood. 



But it is undeniable, that the great majority of the older 

 commentators have held the deluge, according to the brief 

 account of the event given by Moses, to have consisted of a 

 rise of waters over the whole earth, by which the summits of 

 the loftiest mountains on the globe were submerged. Many 

 have indulged in speculations concerning the instruments em- 

 ployed to bring about the grand cataclysm ; and there has been 

 a great division of opinion as to the effects which it might be 

 expected to have produced on the surface of the earth. Ac- 

 cording to one school, of which De Luc in former times, and 

 more recently Dr. Buckland, have been zealous and eloquent 

 supporters, the passage of the flood worked a considerable 

 alteration in the external configuration of our continents. By 

 the last-mentioned writer the deluge is represented as a violent 

 and transient rush of waters which tore up the soil to a great 

 depth, excavated valleys, gave rise to immense beds of shingle, 

 carried fragments of rock and gravel from one point to another, 

 and, during its advance and retreat, strewed the valleys, and 

 even the tops of many hills, with alluvium *. 



But we agree with Dr. Fleming f, that in the narrative of 

 Moses there are no terms employed that indicate the impetuous 

 rushing of the waters, either as they rose or when they re- 



* Buckland, Reliquiae Diluvianse. 



f See a Memoir by the Rev. John Fleming, D. D , on the Geological Deluge, 

 Edin. Phil. Journ., vol. xiv. p. 205, whose opinions were reviewed by the author in 

 Oct. 1827, in an article in the Quarterly Review, No, Ixxii. p. 481. 



